Even after the Bekkersdal Police Station won the ‘Best Police Station’ at the West Rand Cluster Annual Excellence Award, Colonel Tinus Swart, commander of the station said his team, the community and other organisations will not rest until crime is brought to zero.
Swart said although he welcomes the award, which is a great achievement, his goal is to create a crime-free Bekkersdal. “For some people, that is a pie in the sky, but for me is a challenge ahead,” Swart added.
Swart said he believes the secret of succeeding in the fight against crime is team work and joining forces with external organisations.
He said these include schools, churches, rural safety teams, station intervention teams, neighborhood watch initiatives, and their patrollers.
“We also believe that crime cannot only be fought by the physical presence of police officers. They must find a spiritual way to go out and be protected against these forces.”
Swart also gave credit to those who have risked their lives to make sure that the police make arrests and decrease crime.
“I cannot say that this achievement was brought about by the police alone – I must give credit to all the support that we got from our cluster office through intervention,” he said.
Asked about some of the prominent crimes that he still wishes to curb, Swart said even though the Bekkersdal Police has a 100 per cent success rate for assaults, there is still a problem with hijacking, especially on the N12, which criminals target due to the high volume of traffic travelling between Johannesburg and Potchefstroom
However, Swart said efforts have been made to intensify police visibility in conjunction with the national traffic and provincial police.
“We will not stop until we can get ourselves as close to that zero as possible. It is important for us to never stagnate and just sustain, we must always challenge ourselves in trying to reduce crime,” Swart said.
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